Well, since the nation was founded on the basis of religion, and you get to enjoy life there, I don't see how you have a problem with having to say 'Under God' a couple of times.

The most patriotic Americans are not those who suck up to power. Who lie about poverty, sickness, the social ills of our time. Our founding fathers BASED THEIR REVOLUTION on the idea of improving the country they lived in.

What is patriotism? Supporting every war we fight? Supporting the actions of your favorite political party? No. Patriotism is supporting our country, not our military. What country will you have to support, even if we win this War, if there is a massive deficit, an oil shortage crisis, unemployment, illegal immigration, gang violence? You supported the war? You supported candidates who argued over nonissues? You got distracted from bigotry and discrimination in this country, but you supported the War?

Big deal.

Do you realize that that bit was added as part of a cold war propaganda campaign?

More relevantly, I have a very big problem with asking children to recite a pledge of allegiance to ANYTHING. A pledge of allegiance is something that should be made voluntarily(not requested nor compelled) with a full understanding of the significance of the words. One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

If we were truly a nation with a foundation of liberty, we would have no use for propaganda.

I agree with AntiSleep, particularly in that I think it is fundamentally wrong to ask a child to make a pledge of allegiance. In my eyes baptism and other religious rites of passage fall under the same category as well.

Freedom of religion should be expanded to protect children from forcing them to believe in something as well, though that is only a fanciful idea.

Oil companies have been posting huge (record, if I'm not mistaken) profits.


I'm sure any other president wouldn't have dismissed all intelligence that didn't fit his agenda.





I wholeheartedly agree!

I couldn't agree more. Thousands of children are being tainted with the God Virus daily, it's a real shame.

Are you honestly suggesting that parents not be allowed to teach their children what they want just because you don't like it?

Yes, parents forcing their religion on children destroys their freedom of religion.

You can't really force something upon a child, children generally readily accept anything that is fed to them. As children get older they can make up their own mind about what they believe. My parents raised me to believe in God, but that didn't stop me becoming atheist. Once I opened up about it I found out that my mom's half of the family are all atheist .

It's not fair to say that parents should not be allowed to teach religion to their children, it's what they believe to be true. Just because you believe they are incorrect doesn't mean you have the right to say they can't teach their children religion. It is a huge part of many people's lives, and to take that away from them is not your right or responsibility.

Nowhere did anyone say parents shouldn't be able to teach their children about religion. It was merely said that they should wait until children can actually understand the implications of what they're being taught.


I think the case against a pledge of allegiance is much stronger though, because that's almost like having children enter into a contract when they're too young to legally make that decision or have any idea of the meaning behind what they're saying.

O, and I guess you would like children to be taken away from parents at birth, given names such as 10201320 or 21230420, so that their names are not influenced by religion -- and they should be taught by computers to that religion doesn't influence teaching (O, wait a second, then there would be no history class, nor a chemistry class, nor a biology class) -- and that no opinions should be put on the child until they are old enough to make their own decisions. By the way, how old do you have to be to make your own decisions? Decisions are always influenced by something, albiet religion or history or weather.

Being born into a very religious family, being taught it brainwashed by it and turned into a fundie is just how life goes. It's just bad luck like being born into an impoverished family.

Damn striaght. /sarcasm

Oh, I get it, thanks!

It is my opinion that if critical thinking(or philosophy lite) were a required class in high school, we would have a lot fewer problems as a country.

Jesus Christ Gun Solar. YOU CAN QUOTE MORE THAN ONE THING PER POST. I myself, just use the "quote" button while you are on the reply page. Click on "click here to show" to see the recent posts, then copy+paste. Then highlight it, then click quote and it'll have to quote code around it (or you can just type the code in)... And you can then precede to do as many quotes per post as you want, wow! Spamming posts over and over again IS NOT acceptable. I know you can't know all the bbcode instantly, but back when I didn't know how to use it, I did my best to figure it out, previewing posts as many times as necessary, I didn't spam the forums. And if you still want it to say who made the post then just go[quote=insertnamehere] at the start...

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Sep 12 2007, 10:04 pm by Dapperdan.

Have you ever actually read the first ammendment? Making a law that prevents people from teaching their children their beliefs would be a violation. Congress has passed a law regarding the establishment of a religion. Freedom of religion is the right of not being persectued for your religion.

Do you even realize what an expansion of governmetn that would be to arrest and jail parents for teaching their children their beliefs? We might as well throw out what little of the Constitution we have left.

I think you went a little too far with that one. But if you just wanted to prove a point then I guess you suceeded in that. As for my reply to WoaHorde...


I think this is a completely overdone statement. Parents forcing their religion on their childeren is hardly any different then their parents forcing anything else on their childeren. And, quite frankly, if the parents are both very religious and go to church, I think they have little option but to bring their childeren to church with them (aka forcing their religion on them?) and etc. etc. Plenty of people can get religion forced on them and not be religious when they grow up. This isn't to say I think actual "forcing" of a parent's religion on their childeren is a good thing either.

99.9% of the time I don't have anything against religion and parents teaching their religion to their children. It's only when it turns them into closeminded fundie crusading god warriors does it then start to become a problem. Otherwise 99.9% of the time what a person's religious beliefs are don't really matter and aren't even discussed.